Extra Aircraft Deal Mired in Montrose

The deal to build an Extra EA-500 assembly plant in Montrose, Colo., has hit a significant snag. Earlier this summer, the company announced plans to assemble the $1.65 million single-engine turboprop at a site on the Montrose Airport and potentially hire up to 100 employees, but now county manager Jesse Smith maintains that the county cannot provide a key element of a $2.6 million incentive package–cash. Smith said it is up to the Montrose Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to provide the funds. Yesterday, Extra president Ken Keith was meeting with MEDC and county officials to determine if the deal could be salvaged. Montrose would be an assembly plant only; the fuselage and wings would continue to be made at Extra’s factory in Dinslaken, Germany. Errol Bader, Extra’s vice president of business development, told AIN that the Montrose snag would not delay the company’s plan to deliver its first U.S. customer aircraft by year-end. “That airplane will be completed in Germany now,” he said. Bader said that the Montrose impasse had delayed Extra’s production plans, adding that other communities are interested in hosting the plant and “at some point, you have to move on.”